Once again, the Lakers will have to defend the paint. If they don't, they WILL lose this game. Any one of those in the starting 5 can easily shoot outside the paint. Mathews has been absolutely sensational shooting 55% from the field while averaging around 18 points the last 10 games or so.

Our bench will have to be a big factor in winning this game. Since Portland has one of the worst benches, they won't play their entire bench all at once. They'll probably keep in one or two starters in there and rotate.

This is gonna be a rough game, inside and out Portland is gonna test us in all the areas we need to be working on.

So it will be rough win or loss, we just need to not ball stop and keep the ball moving but you already know the strategy.

I'd normally say Gasol needs to take advantage of Lopez and force Aldridge to have to switch, but with his hand injury and the fact that his hook shot has been less than efficient I don't know if I can say that. Hill against Aldridge would be fine if Hill wasn't coming off a sprained ankle, so we'll see.

Blazers have to play the pacers on monday. I can see them looking past the lakers already and focusing on the pacers. Lakers will need to play very good but we could catch the blazers of guard. Hill needs a big game rebouding and hopefully our 3s will fall tonight.